Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve a scene comprising a collection of visual elements, such as an image album comprising a set of image images, a map comprising a set of locations, and a data set comprising a set of visually presented data items. These scenes may support zooming, such as zooming in to view an image in an image album at a larger size and higher visual resolution, or zooming out of a location in a map to achieve an understanding of the surrounding area. Such zooming may be achieved, e.g., by performing click operations with a pointer, by rotating a scroll wheel of a mouse, or by performing “pinch” and “stretch” operations on a multi-touch display. The zoom may be rendered in many ways, such as a prompt transition from the first zoom level to the second zoom level; a cross-fading between the view of the scene at the first zoom level and the view of the scene at the second zoom level; or a blurring of the scene at the first zoom level and a refocusing of the scene at the second zoom level.